Dr Muhammed Anis Abd Wahab, the head of healthcare sustainability and assurance at ProtectHealth, said Malaysia’s primary healthcare system could be tricky to understand.
ProtectHealth is a not-for-profit subsidiary of the health ministry which was established to coordinate, administer, and manage initiatives related to financing healthcare services.
Anis said patients often did not know where to seek treatment or how to differentiate between services, even for basic care – adding that even those familiar with the system, including healthcare professionals like him, could still find it confusing.
“The reality is that healthcare is a difficult, complex system to navigate,” he said at an event organised by insurance firm Prudential.
“People don’t know the difference between going to a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist, let alone the difference between an optometrist and an ophthalmologist.
“Even when I bring my family to different facilities or environments, these have different workflows and protocols. And I’m a doctor who is used to how things work.”
Anis, a former deputy director at the health ministry, said navigating healthcare could be more complicated than other industries, where guidance was clearer.
“I would even argue that banking is much less complex. I can go to a bank and the security guard will tell me which form to fill in, how to get a number, and so on.”
His comments echo findings of research from Prudential, which found that many Malaysians delayed seeking care due to uncertainty and difficulty navigating the system.
Prudential’s study of 1,020 Malaysians found that 94% had delayed seeking medical care in the past year, mainly due to work and family pressures, as well as difficulty navigating the healthcare system.
Released today, a report on the research’s findings identified three key challenges – more than half of respondents (54%) do not know where to go for treatment when unwell; 53% are concerned about affordability despite many finding actual costs lower than expected; and another 53% struggle to use digital tools for booking or managing appointments due to complex or disconnected systems.